Mitsurugi Heishiro

Mitsurugi Heishiro (8 June 1562-) was a Japanese ronin from Bizen Province who trained under the Murakami clan from the age of 14. Noted by Kenshin Uesugi and Nobunaga Oda as a great warrior, he learned that the rifle changed the way that the samurai fought and could put him out of business.

Biography
Born in Bizen Province in Chugoku, he saw the lands of Japan being ravaged in the Sengoku Period of tumultuous warfare. When his parents died when he was fourteen years old, Mitsurugi decided to take a sword and train under the Murakami clan. A powerful force on the field of battle, he was noted by Nobunaga Oda and Kenshin Uesugi as a great warrior and was praised as the "man who could mow down foes like a field of wheat". But after witnessing the Battle of Nagashino and the effects of the Tanegashima rifle, he knew that these new weapons could put him out of business, so he searched for something that could best firearms: a stronger weapon.

Mitsurugi went on a quest that was unparalleled by any warrior at the time: he traveled the world in search of a stronger sword. As a mercenary on an adventure, he assisted Marquis Andre's Spanish army laying siege to Sir Stefan of Ostrheinsburg's castle at Ostrheinsburg in 1584, and found the weapon he was looking for in Valencia Port in Spain. It was guarded by a pirate called Cervantes de Leon, and after defeating him in a duel, he found the legendary "Soul Edge" and her smaller sword "Nirvana". He felt that the two swords were too weak and threw them in the air, and as they fell cut them into pieces with his katana.

Having fulfilled his quest, Mitsurugi returned to Japan and challenged Teppou Tanegashima, a rifleman, telling him that his sword could defeat his rifle. Dodging the bullets and charging at Tanegashima, Heishiro Mitsurugi was able to cut him down with a single stroke of his katana.

In the following years he fought for various daimyo and in 1591 he set out to assist the last resistance against the Toyotomi Shogunate. Joining the Murakami clan's defense of Noujima against the Kuki, he fought in the straits until the Toyotomi-Kuki navy emerged victorious.